After 15 years at ORPRN, Anne King, ORPRN’s Associate Directors moving on to join Comagine Health as their new State Director for Oregon. Anne’s contributions to ORPRN began at its founding in 2002 when she was hired as the first Network Manager. Six years later, she transitioned to OHSU’s Oregon Clinical and Translational Research Institute, but rejoined ORPRN in 2016 to build a new program dedicated to health equity. Anne partnered with Dr. Bruce Goldberg to propose and ultimately run the 6-year Accountable Health Communities (AHC) study funded by Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services. AHC partnered with 6 Coordinated Care Organizations (CCOs) and 50 clinical sites to screen 25,000 Medicare and Medicaid members for health-related social needs and connect them to services. Under her leadership, the Health Policy Team portfolio grew to include over 20 health equity-related projects.
ORPRN’s Health Policy team and Daniel Hoover, MD (Assistant Professor, OHSU Addiction Medicine) are partnering with the Oregon Criminal Justice Commission to help Oregon counties create Deflection programs. Deflection is when people are offered access to behavioral health resources or substance use treatment as an alternative to entry into the criminal legal system. Counties are standing up deflection programs as part of a recently passed law that among other things recriminalizes the possession of controlled substances. ORPRN’s Deflection Implementation Technical Assistance program is providing training, direct coaching and resources to twenty-four Oregon Counties who have opted into building deflection programs. The technical assistance program kick started with three in-person educational and workshop events in July.
ORPRN’s Health Policy team closed out another successful year of policy implementation support for Coordinated Care Organizations, providers and community organizations on topics like social needs screening and referral, Medicaid flexibilities that allow spending on social determinants of health and equity, and expanding access to services in non-traditional settings and with non-traditional provider. Some specific team accomplishments this year include:
- Leading the efforts to define key pieces of Traditional Health Worker supervision policy alongside the Oregon Health Authority and the Oregon Traditional Health Worker Commission
- Convening diverse partners to define and develop specifications for four new In Lieu of Services available for use by Coordinated Care Organization
- Supporting the Oregon Health Authority on review and analysis of statewide Health Related Services data
- Beginning to define billing pathways for non-traditional services and settings to that will allow great access to behavioral health services for children
- Supported the development of a Traditional Health Worker Payment Guidance document
- Developed the 2024 SDOH Metric Learning Collaborative Playbook, to help CCOs think through steps to take related to the SDOH metric 2024 goals.
- Released the latest installment of the SDOH metric FAQ, addressing metric-related questions from CCOs and partners.
In July, members of the ORPRN research program delivered progress reports to the Oregon Health Authority (OHA) highlighting accomplishments and lessons learned from breast and cervical cancer, colorectal cancer, and tobacco cessation technical assistance projects that occurred between July 2023 – June 2024. ORPRN regularly partners with the OHA to support clinics and other health system partners across the state serving rural and diverse populations to implement key screening and prevention programs. The knowledge and skills gained from these programs often translate to additional program and service areas. Over the last year the breast and cervical cancer project partnered with three clinical practices that served 14,735 patients; the colorectal cancer project partnered with five clinics that served 12,122 patients; and the tobacco cessation project reached 22 local public health authorities and community based organizations responsible for tobacco cessation programming in their communities.
The ORPRN team completed a report on the 30-30-30 plan for the OHSU-PSU School of Public (SPH) Health to bolster Oregon's public health workforce by meeting the educational needs of diverse, rural learners. ORPRN’s needs assessment gave the SPH vital insight on how to tailor its public health programming for diverse, rural learners. One of the key findings was to leverage existing infrastructure with groups that already do or can support rural learners by building and maintaining long-term relationships.